ECJ Upholds Decision In Chloroprene Rubber Cartel Case

On 26 September 2013, the Court of Justice of the European Union ("ECJ") dismissed appeals brought by El DuPont de Nemours and Company ("El DuPont") and the Dow Chemical Company ("Dow") against a 2012 judgment of the General Court ("GC"), dismissing their appeals against the European Commission's decision in the chloroprene rubber cartel case (see VBB on Competition Law, Volume 2012, No. 2, available at www.vbb.com).

In so doing, the ECJ has confirmed the approach taken by the Commission in attributing liability for an infringement committed by a jointly controlled joint venture to its parent companies. According to the ECJ, the fact that the joint venture performs all the functions of an "autonomous economic entity" (for the purposes of the EU Merger Regulation) does not necessarily mean that the parent companies are not able to exercise definitive influence over the joint venture for the purposes of attributing liability. The ECJ found that liability for the